Robert Crumb Arthur Asa Berger - Essay

Arthur Asa Berger

There are many parodies in the underground comics, and comic strip and comic book heroes are frequently ridiculed. But the underground comics also ridicule the absurdities of the counterculture as well as those of bourgeois culture. For example, one of the most interesting underground heroes is Robert Crumb's fake guru, Mr. Natural, a horny old man with a bald head and long flowing whiskers. His cohort is a seeker-after-knowledge named Flakey Foont, who never gains any satisfaction from Mr. Natural, and who is, in fact, frequently abused by him. (pp. 220-21)

Mr. Natural goes to the Haight-Ashbury district where he encounters all kinds of people who want his advice. He runs into a hippie costume shop...